The present invention relates to biomedical engineering and in particular to a method and apparatus for effecting neural stimulation.
In recent years smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone and Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy, have become ubiquitous. Many complain that people spend a lot of time looking at the display screens of these phones as well as tablets, such as the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy tablet. In addition, with the increasing processing power of gaming devices such as the Nintendo Switch, the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation, gamers can spend hours in front of the display screens of these devices. There is some concern, including within the medical community, that spending so much time exposed to the display screens of these devices will have deleterious effects on the users.
Recently, neural scientists have found that exposure to a controlled flickering of light will stimulate neural activity in the brains of mice. The basis for this stimulation is the inducing of microglia into an engulfing state which facilitates the transport of amyloid beta away from an area where it interferes with brain function. This is described in an article entitled Noninvasive 40-Hz light flicker to recruit microglia and reduce amyloid beta load by Singer et al., Nature Protocols, Vol. 13, Aug. 2, 2018, pp. 1850-1868 and in Published U.S. Application 2017/0143934 published May 25, 2017, the disclosures of both of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. In the article, the authors disclose that they “recently showed that using noninvasive exposure to 40-Hz white-light (4,000 K) flicker to drive 40-Hz neural activity transforms microglia into an engulfing state and reduces amyloid beta, a peptide thought to initiate neurotoxic events in Alzheimer's disease”. In addition, research has shown that exposure to bluer light near the end of a person's circadian rhythm delays the onset of natural sleep more than does exposure to redder light.